Observational Analysis of Point-of-Care Lactate Plus™ Meter in Preclinical Trauma Models

Background/Objectives: Blood lactate concentration is often used to assess systemic hypoperfusion, tissue hypoxia, and sepsis in trauma patients and serves as a prognostic indicator and marker of response to therapy. Point-of-care (POC) devices provide rapid lactate measurements with a single drop of blood. In this study, lactate values from whole blood, measured with two POC devices, Abbott i-STAT (R) and the Nova Biomedical Lactate (LA) Plus (TM) meter, are compared. Methods: An observational analysis of 760 blood samples from four preclinical trauma animal models was performed. Lactate was measured simultaneously with two POC devices (i-STAT (R) and the Lactate Plus (TM) meter). The evaluation in the form of a Bland-Altman diagram showed the agreement of the tests. Results: The Spearman correlation was 0.9180 (95% CI 0.9056 to 0.9288) for i-STAT (R) vs. the LA Plus (TM) meter. Both tests showed a significant increase in lactate after injury (p < 0.05). The i-STAT (R) showed a small bias compared to the LA Plus (TM) meter (-0.0227 +/- 0.4542 with 95% limits of agreement from -0.09129 to 0.8675). The LA Plus (TM) meter showed slightly higher values overall (0.0227 mmol/L), but the i-STAT (R) showed higher results at lactate levels above 2.5 mmol/L. Conclusions: The observed similarity in performance between the two devices suggests that both are capable of reliably measuring lactate levels in a trauma situation. The LA Plus (TM) meter provides fast results with only one drop of blood. This study supports the prehospital use of POC devices.